This book is overflowing with the type of contemplative life wisdom you’d expect from a Buddhist monk. Ponder this little gem: “In our Western Greco-Roman compartmentalized fragmented systematized linear reductionist individualized disconnected parts-oriented thinking, we tend to disassociate the seen from the unseen. We do so at our own peril. We are all, every one of us, simply a manifestation of this invisible world.”

And this one, “Do you ever wonder why people have such an unprecedented demand for sensationalism, for fantasy, for celebrity? It’s because life without responsibility is boring. Personal responsibility is thrilling. Wow, what a ride! Sure, dependency is easier. It feeds my laziness, but it doesn’t feed my humanness.”

While you might not agree with everything in this book, you definitely appreciate Joel Salatin‘s perspective and his opinions on how to fix our broken food system, our broken selves and our broken world.

I’ll add, I met Mr. Salatin a couple of months ago at a speaking engagement he did at Camino de Paz Middle School in Santa Cruz, NM. He’s even more charming in person than his books convey and he has rightly earned the title (given him by the New York Times), “High Priest of the Pasture”.